I’m happy and proud of these popoozas; mainly ’cause closes a lengthy period (collection) and also because I gave myself 2 nights to edit and master them (no CC or grade). That averages onto 1 minute per hour – wow rush! 😛

One thing that it’s painfully different between live/real time and image based cratfs/arts is that in order to work, to massage, to try different approaches you’ve got to re-render your changes and it’s never real-time (accurate) feedback. So there’s a ton (and I mean it, petabytes, literally) of records one has to create, check over and throw away at the end.
These test icles gather some (maybe like a thousandth part) of those processes. As an example imagine, I buy a new camera and I have to test it, ok? So if there are:

• Six o seven profiles (natural standard, smooth, etc.)
• Four customizable settings with 10 steps for each mode (contrast, saturation, sharpness and NR)
• Plus the inteligent variations, iRez, iDR, etc.
• And the video filters and photo effects (over 30)
• Regarding video you have to add all shooting modes like 1080p24, 1080p30, 1080p60, 720p60 with motionjpeg, mp4, MTS and mov diffrent wrappers. Still intra or long GOP variations.
• Lets not forget that camera’s ISO goes from 160 to 12800 in third stops increments (20 stages)
• Of course rolling shutter and artifacts, motion blur and colour rendition, recording compability and stability, different lens’ and focal lenghts comparisons, low light and usability. Then image (playing) accuracy, different render platforms and settings and compression codecs and algorithms and one can left offsprings uncombed but never ever without eating.

/// I won’t even go into the 200+ patches and its myriad variations and itinerations that exist for the GH2 ///

It’s no surprise when it takes a whole month to really know that particular gear. With “to know” I mean you truly understand what are its image characteristics, its strong and weakn points… Then you buy new lens, new camera, new workstation, new grading suite, new workflows, uff. Also one needs to check for material that has been dithered (added noise), for edits, effects (from slomo to blends, crops, stabilizations, etc.), CC (colour correction), grades, etc., etc.

Result is that – at least at certain point – you would spend more time testing than actually shooting or “creating” some fancy-pants video // photo. In my particular case, I embrace the process, I adopt those orphan tests as my family’s photo album. This is my homage to the consuming task of growing WITH them =)